Behind Every Lie(3)
Another low rumble of thunder. I ducked my head and tilted the umbrella over my forehead, keeping my eyes fixed on my phone. It was, I’d learned, the best way to disappear. Instagram told me one college friend had been promoted at work, another had just had her second kid. I had forty likes and six comments on my picture of my engagement ring.
As I arrived at the restaurant, I slid my umbrella closed and reached for the door, noticing as I did an elderly homeless man sitting under the restaurant’s awning. Matted gray beard. Sad, rheumy eyes. Ancient, weathered face. He was drenched. No coat. A crumpled umbrella lay on the soggy cardboard box under him, its frame bent and broken. My heart crunched with sadness.
“Here, take this,” I said gently. I pressed my umbrella in his hand.
His eyes lit up and he smiled, revealing a row of missing teeth. “Have a blessed day, miss!”
The restaurant was crowded. Mom was already sitting at a table in the middle of the room, her beige khakis, shapeless V-neck sweater-vest, and no-nonsense brown shoes clashing with the linen-draped tables and elegant Renaissance-style murals.
“You’re late,” Mom said, her crisp British accent disapproving.
“Sorry, Mom.” I knew she hated it when I called her Mom instead of Mum, which was probably why I did it, some stupid, knee-jerk reaction left over from my teenage years. “Traffic was pretty bad for a Sunday.”
I expected her to scorch me with a critical comment as I gave her a quick side hug, but she stayed silent. She smelled of pine trees and cotton body lotion, a bizarre bouquet of nostalgia that launched me back to happy family camping trips and sulky adolescent silences. I wondered if all mother-daughter relationships were as complicated as ours.
“Congratulations on the award!” I said. “You’re an actual, real-life hero!”
“Don’t be daft.” She waved a hand in the air.
I squeezed into a chair across from her, the only place I could comfortably eat as a lefty. My fingers fluttered to my mouth and I nibbled a fingernail.
Mom gave me the Look, her makeup-less eyes tiny behind thick, black-rimmed glasses. “I’d rather hoped you’d grown out of that.”
I dropped my hands and twisted my engagement ring instead. I wanted to tell her I was usually better, but she broke into a coughing fit. Her face reddened as she clutched her chest. She pulled a Kleenex from her bag and blew her nose.
“Are you okay?”
“Oh, just this bloody cold. Can’t seem to shake it.” She touched a hand to her head and winced. Was her skin tinted yellow, or was it just the restaurant’s lighting?
“I saw Jacob yesterday,” she said. “He’s moved back home to take care of his dad. Apparently Bill has cancer.”
Jacob Hardmann had lived across the road from us when I was a teenager. We’d met at the school bus stop when we were twelve. He was my best friend, and once, briefly, something more. But his work as a photographer took him out of the country a lot, and it had been years now since I’d seen him, or really even thought of him.
“Really?” I couldn’t hide my surprise. “Bill was pretty violent. I didn’t think they got along.”
“Well, since Barbara died there isn’t anyone else to care for him. Jacob’s a good boy. He always does the right thing.”
Not always, I thought.
“So, tell me. How are wedding plans coming along?” she asked. “When’s the big day?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said vaguely. “We haven’t really planned anything yet. We’re in no rush.”
That wasn’t exactly true. Liam was already pushing to set a date, calling around for venues, organizing a meeting with the priest in Coupeville.
Mom adjusted her glasses, her brown eyes suddenly sharp. “Have you told Liam about what happened?”
I looked at my hands. Shame slid down my spine, cold and sticky, like tapioca pudding.
“I can’t,” I whispered. This was exactly why I didn’t want them to meet. Liam couldn’t know about my past. What if he didn’t believe me? Worse, what if he rejected me? It was easier to pretend it had never happened. “He’ll think I’m broken or something.”
When I looked at Mom, her face was uncharacteristically soft. “Darling, I’m not entirely certain one can ever become unbroken, but I do know we can be strong and brave and broken and whole all at the same time. It’s called being human.”
“Can we please not talk about it?”
Mom’s forehead creased, her eyes puzzled. She was a stern, stoic physics teacher. She dealt in hard facts and cold truths. She didn’t understand how I could pretend nothing had happened. But I’d learned that if you didn’t let yourself feel too much, you could tuck the trauma into a box, seal it up, and get on with your life.
“I rather think telling the truth would be a better way to start a marriage,” she said.
Aunt Lily swept in then, saving me from answering. She was wearing navy stilettos and a drapey linen pantsuit, her silver-platinum bob wrapped in a navy scarf that trailed over one shoulder.
“Hello, my lovely!” She kissed me on both cheeks. “Look at you! So pretty. And I love your hair that way!” She patted my cropped hair, recently streaked with toffee and bronze highlights.
Aunt Lily wasn’t my real aunt, but she’d been Mom’s best friend since she’d moved into our neighborhood when I was twelve. They’d both grown up in England, Mom in the north, Lily in the south, and bonded over a love of pinochle and old musicals. Mom was rules and discipline while Lily was laughter and fun. She gave us cake for breakfast, let us watch scary movies before bed, and even took me to get my belly button pierced when I was sixteen, much to Mom’s horror.